“If they’re sensors,” Markus said following Beckman’s gaze, “They’ve detected us.”
“If they’re still building it, it may not be active yet,” Dr McInness said as he knelt to examine the metallic line embedded along the center of the corridor. “This line obviously connects the towers, networking them if they’re sensors, or providing power?”
Beckman turned to Hooper. “We’ll follow the road, you stay under cover. See if we can find what that transport was delivering the poles to.”
Hooper nodded. “Back to the trees, people. This ain’t no sightseeing trip.”
While Hooper led the team into the shadows of the forest, Beckman, Markus and Dr McInness followed the corridor as it climbed a hill to the south. When they neared the crest of the hill, they heard tree trunks snapping and boulders shattering, but no sounds of earth moving equipment. They peered over the crest to discover a large, beetle-shaped machine silently inching down the far slope, crushing all in its path. The crack of splintering tree trunks ceased as the beetle halted. A circle dilated within the seamless rear of the machine, giving a glimpse of a dark interior, then a pole fitted with a cross arm slid out on a metal cradle. When the cradle was clear of the beetle, it rotated to the vertical and the pole slid toward the ground. When the bottom of the pole touched the sealed surface, it glowed a brilliant red, then slid slowly into the ground. Smoke billowed from the entry point as the pole bored through the elastic surface into the ground below. After several minutes, the pole had firmly embedded itself in the bedrock and the smoke cleared. The cradle detached from the pole and retracted back into the machine, then the circular opening vanished. A moment later, the cracking of tree trunks began anew as the beetle started grinding northwards again.
“How far are we are from the landing site?” Markus asked.
“Twenty-five clicks,” Beckman replied, noting how the corridor curved away to the northwest behind them, while the beetle shaped machine was crawling slowing to the southwest. “It’s crossing our line of advance,” he added uncomfortably.
“Major, we don’t know what this technology is for,” Dr McInness said, trying to allay his fears. “They might be measuring the Earth’s gravitational field, or building an interstellar communications system to call for help. It could be anything.”
“I hope you’re right, Doc,” Beckman said unconvinced as he tried to gauge the distance to the pole behind them. “How far apart do you think those things are?”
“About three kilometers,” Markus said with the confidence of a trained observer.
Beckman turned back to the beetle, watching its steady progress through the forest. “We better get started. I want to be in position when that bug plants the next pole.”
* * * *
The snapping of tree trunks sounded like gun shots as the rounded, silver-hulled machine approached Beckman’s position. An invisible force beneath its hull crushed every obstruction, effortlessly smashing boulders and knocking down trees, blending their substances at a quantum level. High on the beetle’s steeply sloping hull was a single horizontal slit window. Beckman swept his binoculars over it, hoping to glimpse the machine’s operators, but saw only interior walls and colored lights.
“Any time now,” he whispered, hoping they’d calculated the distance from the last pole correctly.
Xeno and Virus readied themselves beside Beckman, while the rest of the team formed a loose skirmish line further south. Beckman had decided that Dr McInness, for his own protection, was not going aboard. The scientist, disgusted at his exclusion, was now accompanied by Tucker, who knelt beside him ensuring he obeyed orders. Surprisingly, Markus had shown not the slightest desire to board the machine. He was satisfied merely to observe from a safe distance. Beckman had already concluded Markus was more than capable of looking after himself, and wondered whether the CIA agent would simply slip away into the forest if they got into trouble, either to go to the ship alone, or report back to his political masters. Even now, Markus sat relaxing with his back against a tree, observing proceedings and making detailed mental notes.
He’s a very self sufficient individual, Beckman thought.
Dr McInness suddenly cried out, his voice cutting through the natural sounds of the forest. All eyes turned toward him as he scrambled backwards in fright, losing his glasses and his pack. Tucker calmly whipped out his bowie knife and plunged the carbon steel blade into a slender form slithering on the ground. He twisted the knife to the sound of crunching bone, then held it up. The blade had impaled the cream-colored head of a snake, its thin, copper-brown body measuring more than two meters in length.
Dr McInness relaxed, then sighed embarrassed and began feeling for his glasses. Muted chuckles and knowing looks rippled up the line.
Vamp whispered to Xeno, “He’s got to be a virgin.”
“Are you going to fix that?”
“I might,” Vamp said with a mischievous twinkle in her eye. “Wouldn’t take long.”
Laura leaned past Tucker and studied the snake. “It’s a taipan.”
“Skinny runt,” Tucker said, unimpressed.
She gave Dr McInness a sober look. “It’s the deadliest snake on Earth, fifty times more toxic than a cobra. If it’d bitten you, you’d be dead already.”
Dr McInness adjusted his glasses, swallowing nervously. “I see.”
Tucker looked at the snake with renewed respect. “Is it good eating?”
“Not if you swallow the poison sac,” Laura said.
Nuke chuckled. “Fifty times deadlier than a cobra, and he wants to eat it!”
Tucker scowled at Nuke, then with a flick of the wrist, tossed the dead snake at him.
“Hey!” Nuke said as he swatted it away, afraid of being scratched by its fangs. “Get the hell away, man!” He scrambled away from the snake’s lifeless body as laughter rippled up the line. “That’s not funny!”
“Not as funny as if it’d bitten your ass,” Steamer said, sitting with his back against his pack while Tucker’s granite face cracked a smile.
“Shut the hell up!” Hooper hissed angrily.
Beckman’s eyes returned to the silver beetle-like machine. It had stopped and now floated silently a short distance from their position. It was as high as a two-story building, and as long as an eighteen-wheeler.
“Let’s go,” he said, jumping to his feet and jogging toward the rear of the machine with Xeno and Virus close behind.
They emerged from the trees two thirds of the way along the machine’s length. Beckman felt the hairs on his legs prickle as the field beneath the beetle came in contact with his skin. He ran alongside the machine to the circular opening at the rear where a pole was already sliding out on the cradle a meter above his head. Virus and Xeno linked hands for his boot, then heaved him up into a long compartment that ran the length of the vehicle. Silver metal poles were stored on wall clamps to the right, cross arms to the left. The cradle and armature that passed the poles through the hatch were attached to a small rectangular machine in the center of the compartment.
He pulled Xeno and Virus up into the compartment, then gave Hooper, watching from the tree line, a thumbs-up. Hooped nodded, then Beckman led them to the far end of the compartment and watched the cradle outside release the pole once it was embedded in the ground. The arm slid silently back into the cube-shaped machine, then the circular opening irised shut, leaving the cradle compartment filled with a soft yellow-orange light. In a few seconds, their eyes began to sting as the air changed from earth normal to something unpleasantly breathable.
Xeno ran her eye over the compartment. “No markings.”
“And no control panels,” Virus added, noting the lack of doors or hatches leading to other sections of the vehicle.
Beckman remembered a lesson drummed into him at Groom Lake: Cave men wouldn’t know how to use a cell phone or a computer, because such things were inconceivable to stone age man.
Would I recognize a door? he wondered, suspecting he was
now the cave man.
“There’s got to be something here,” Virus said, “even if it’s just for maintenance access.”
“Maybe their stuff never breaks down,” Beckman replied as he curiously touched the gray wall at the end of the compartment. It was cold, metallic and perfectly smooth. He turned to speak to his companions, but found himself facing another blank gray wall. Disoriented and confused, he spun around, discovering that he now stood in the control room with the slit cockpit window at the far end of the room. He’d felt no sensation of movement, yet was in a different part of the vehicle.
Neat trick, he thought as he stepped out of the transport alcove.
The low ceiling forced him to stoop, telling him the builders of the machine were shorter than Homo sapiens. He glanced back at the small rectangular alcove, which offered no clue as to how he’d been transported there. The control room itself contained two small seats in front of featureless black panels below the slit window. The panels sloped gently toward the chairs, and appeared to be made of a glossy black plastic material. There were no controls on the panels, no displays or lights, nothing that indicated a means to control the vehicle. Additional seats on opposite sides of the room also faced featureless black panels positioned beneath wall mounted screens filled with tiny swirling symbols. Beckman felt slightly disoriented looking at the screens, but couldn’t decide why.
The cockpit’s slit windows provided a clear view of slender white tree trunks in brilliant sunshine being knocked down by a powerful force extending from the front of the machine. Incredibly, while continual destruction was being wrought outside, there was no sound or sense of movement inside the vehicle.
Xeno appeared in the alcove, with an astonished look on her face. “I was staring straight at you, then you were gone!” She exclaimed as she stepped out of the alcove.
A moment later Virus appeared in her place. “Nice ride.”
“It’s an elevator,” Beckman concluded, realizing they had travelled straight up one level.
Xeno glanced at the four vacant seats. “Where’s the crew?”
“There isn’t one,” Beckman said. “It’s either automated, or remotely controlled.”
Xeno was drawn to one of the wall screens flowing with curling, geometric symbols. They swirled around and into the screen in complex patterns that constantly changed. She moved from left to right, seeing how her shifting perspective moved the symbols relative to each other. “These displays are three dimensional.”
Beckman glanced at the screen, realizing the swirling three dimensional turmoil was what he’d found disorienting. The illusion was so perfect, when he looked into the screen, he lost his capacity to determine where the screen’s surface was. “Have you seen those characters before?”
“No, they’re not familiar.” Xeno slipped out of her backpack and pulled a notebook computer and digital camera from it. She plugged them together and began recording the wall screen images which the computer checked against its language database. After a few minutes, she said, “Not one symbol match. It’s a totally new language.” She glanced at the wall screen again. “I’ve never seen information displayed like that before.”
“Yeah.” Beckman winced. “It’s a mess. Maybe it’s broken.”
“It looks chaotic, because it’s so complex and changes so fast.” She typed some instructions into her computer. “I’ll run a pattern search. The computer might recognize the structure of it.” Soon the computer began plotting recurring patterns. “There’s information in the spatial relationships between the symbols, in the way the symbols change from one shape to another, as well as in the symbols themselves. They’re using more dimensions to transmit information than we do.”
“It gives me a headache,” Beckman said, looking away.
“They must have a talent for multidimensional thinking,” Xeno said thoughtfully. “Or seeing? Even if we knew what it meant, I doubt we could process the information fast enough to understand it.”
“Record as much as you can. It’ll keep the Groom lab rats busy for years trying to figure it out.” Beckman turned to the two front facing seats. He’d assumed, because of the low ceiling, that the occupants would be small, but these seats were wider than the average man would need. “They might be smart, but they’ve got big asses,” he muttered.
Xeno aimed her camera at the seats, being sure to capture Beckman in the shot as a point of reference. “The physiology is different to the few species we know about.”
“I guess we can add short, fat-assed aliens to the list.”
Xeno gave him a reproachful look.
“OK, we’ll call them obese aliens. Obesians!” Beckman smiled. “Just don’t ask me to sit next to one on a plane.”
“Wow!” Virus exclaimed. He stood staring down at a panel on the right side of the compartment alive with the same disorienting three dimensional colors and shapes as the wall screens.
“What happened?” Beckman asked, as Xeno aimed her video camera at the display.
“I went to touch it,” Virus said, demonstrating by hovering his hand over the display, “And it just came on. There must be a proximity sensor somewhere.” He dumped his pack on the ground and slid into the seat, then moved his hand experimentally over the top of the panel. Nothing happened. He lowered his hand toward the surface, intending to touch it, but his fingers passed through into the display’s interior. Suddenly aware of what he was doing, he pulled his hand out. “Did you see that? I could have sworn it was solid a minute ago!”
“It was solid,” Beckman said, “Before you turned it on.”
“I felt something! It was electric and … oily.” He reached out to try again.
Beckman put his hand on Virus’ shoulder. “Careful.”
“Major,” Virus said, “We’re not going to learn how this stuff works by watching pretty light shows.”
Reluctantly, Beckman released his shoulder. “OK, but take it slow.”
“Yes sir,” Virus said, sliding his hand into the display toward a glowing yellow helix. “It’s got hold of my hand.” His eyes widened in wonder. “It’s in my head!” He took a deep breath, as if bracing himself for what flooded into his mind. “Oh man, there’s way more here than what you see on the panel.” His fingers touched the helix, changing the swirling patterns, as if he was drawing his finger through water, then the vehicle shuddered, the first sense of movement they’d felt since climbing aboard. Virus immediately withdrew his hand, and the lights returned to their previous settings. “It’s a power control! I knew what it wanted me to do. It’s like sculpting. If I change the shape of the helix, by touching it and by visualizing the change, that changes many settings at once.”
“Is it dangerous?” Beckman asked.
“Doesn’t seem to be.”
“What did you mean, it’s in your head?” Xeno asked.
“It’s teaching me, not with words, more like impressions.” He searched for a way to explain it. “There’s a lot I’m not understanding. It’s using my nervous system to communicate directly with . . . my brain.” He slid his hand back into the control interface. “I’ll get the hang of it. I just need a little practice.”
“OK, but don’t run over our people outside.”
“I’ll try not to,” Virus said as he cautiously slid his finger tips toward the helix.
Beckman turned to the front control consoles, passing his hand experimentally over one, testing for a proximity sensor. The panel flashed on, displaying a perfect three dimensional map of the region a hundred kilometers across. It showed every hill, escarpment, river, stream and gully in perfect detail.
“Finally! Something I recognize,” Beckman said, amazed at the topographical map’s three dimensional detail.
Overlaying the map were four glowing yellow markers, each trailing a series of red dots which formed four segments of a partially completed circle. The circle had the Goyder River crash site at its center, and Beckman realized, the most easterly yellow point represented th
e vehicle they rode in. He counted the red dots, guessing they were the deployed poles, and tried to estimate when the circle would be complete.
“They’re creating a perimeter around the crash site,” Beckman said, “about fifty kilometers across.”
Xeno turned and filmed the screen in front of Beckman. “Maybe it’s a giant antennae, and they’re going to call for help.”
“Whatever it is, it’s almost complete,” Beckman said apprehensively.
“Ugh!” Virus groaned and passed out. His head flopped forward into the display console, and sank up to his ears.
The vehicle lurched suddenly, almost knocking Beckman off his feet, then he grabbed Virus and dragged him away from the display. Virus’ head rolled back, eyes closed and breathing shallowly as his hands fell away from the display, then the vehicle quietly returned to autopilot.
Xeno put her camera down and pressed her fingers against Virus’ throat. “He’s alive, but his pulse is erratic.”
“God damn it!” Beckman knew he shouldn’t have let Virus experiment with the strange technology. “Let’s get him out of here.”
Beckman pulled Virus out of the seat and carried him into the alcove at the rear of the control room. A moment later, they were in the pole compartment. He hauled Virus halfway to the armature machine, then lay him on the floor as Xeno appeared at the end of the compartment carrying Virus’ pack. Beckman slapped Virus’ face gently, trying unsuccessfully to rouse him. He lifted his eyelids, finding Virus’ eyes had rolled up, then he thumbed his mike, “Hooper, this is Beckman. Virus is down. We’ll need help getting out.”
“Roger that, we’re right outside.”
“Have Timer standing by with two shaped charges, rigged for remote detonation.”
“Understood.”
Xeno gave Beckman a curious look. “You’re going to destroy this vehicle?”
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